Too poor/young for The Conduit? Hudson has you covered this week with Water Warfare, a completely non-violent first person shooter with online play and a ranking system. In fact, Water Warfare has one feature that’s missing from The Conduit: local split screen multiplayer for two people. (Of course, whether the game is actually any good is anyone’s guess.) Meanwhile, if you prefer your shooting even cuter, the Virtual Console has Fantasy Zone II: The Tears of Opa-Opa from the Master System.

The DSi’s update is quite a bit smaller than the four-game update the Wii is getting. The DSi’s only new game today is Sudoku Master. If you’ve already finished all of the puzzles in Brain Age 1 and 2, however, this may be the best news you’ve heard all day. As always, check past the break for more details.

DSiWare

• SUDOKU MASTER (Hudson Entertainment, Players: 1, ESRB Rating: E, 500 Nintendo DSi Points™)

WiiWare

• Water Warfare™ (Hudson Entertainment, Players: 1-8, ESRB Rating: E10+, 800 Wii Points™)
  Reel Fishing® Challenge (Natsume, Inc., Players: 1, ESRB Rating: E, 500 Wii Points)
  Silver Star Reversi (Agetec, Inc., Players: 1-2, ESRB Rating: E, 500 Wii Points)
• Water Warfare™ (Hudson Entertainment, Players: 1-8, ESRB Rating: E10+, 800 Wii Points™)
• Reel Fishing® Challenge (Natsume, Inc., Players: 1, ESRB Rating: E, 500 Wii Points)
• Silver Star Reversi (Agetec, Inc., Players: 1-2, ESRB Rating: E, 500 Wii Points)

Virtual Console

• Fantasy Zone™ II: The Tears of Opa-Opa (SEGA MASTER SYSTEM, SEGA, Players: 1, ESRB Rating: E, 500 Wii Points)

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Any week with a new Art Style game is a good week. This week, the DSi gets Art Style: Boxlife. Cut and fold pieces of paper to make boxes. For extra fun, you can earn different items to customize your character’s appearance or stick in his “miniature garden,” which I hope isn’t supposed to be some kind of weird sexual innuendo.

Over on the Wii, WiiWare has an update of the DS game Neves (which is all about silhouette puzzles), Drill Sergeant Mindstrong (which is all about boot camp-themed minigames), and Family Mini Golf (which is all about one turtle’s struggles with its own sexual identity. Or miniature golf. Whatever.) As for the Virtual Console, today’s release is Super Smash Bros.! SimEarth: The Living Planet. Check past the break for full descriptions of all of these games.

DSiWare

• Art Style: BOXLIFE™ (Nintendo, Players: 1, ESRB Rating: E 500 Nintendo DSi Points™)

WiiWare

• Drill Sergeant Mindstrong (XSEED Games, Players: 1-4, ESRB Rating: E10+, 800 Wii Points™)
• NEVES Plus™ (YUKES Company of America, Players: 1-4 ESRB Rating: E, 600 Wii Points)
• Family Mini Golf (Aksys Games, Players: 1-8, ESRB Rating: E, 500 Wii Points)

Virtual Console

• SimEarth™: The Living Planet (TurboGrafx16 CD-ROM, Hudson Entertainment, Players: 1, ESRB Rating: E, 800 Wii Points)

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The Wii’s cup runneth over this week with a whopping (yes, whopping) four games; three WiiWare and one Virtual Console. First is the eagerly-anticipated Eduardo the Samurai Toaster, a stylized sidescrolling action game, like many a Contra or Gunstar Hero before it. (It even features four player simultaneous multiplayer.) If samurai toasters throwing bread aren’t cute enough for you, there’s Rainbow Islands: Towering Adventure, an update of the classic Rainbow Islands from way back in the days of the NES. Finally. the famously weird Let’s CATCH, from Sega, also makes its North American debut today. Apparently there are even special unlockables if you own Let’s CATCH and Let’s TAP. (You don’t, yet.) If you’re in the mood for something more retro, the Virtual Console has Space Harrier for the Virtual Console Arcade. Yes, it’s another SHMUP, but it’s a good one, with a fantasy theme and a 3D point of view.

Oh, and DSiWare gets a Super Mario Bros. themed clock and calculator. Better luck next week, DSi owners.

DSiWare

• Mario™ Calculator: (Publisher, Nintendo, Players: 1, ESRB Rating: N/A, Price: 200 Nintendo DSi Points™)
• Mario™ Clock: (Publisher: Nintendo, Players: 1, ESRB Rating: E , Price: 200 Nintendo DSi Points)

WiiWare

• Eduardo the Samurai Toaster: (Publisher: Semnat Studios, Players: 1-4, ESRB Rating: E, Price: 800 Wii Points™)
• RAINBOW ISLANDS™: TOWERING ADVENTURE! (Publisher: TAITO, Players: 1-2, ESRB Rating: E, Price: 800 Wii Points)
• Let’s CATCH™: (Publisher: SEGA, Players: 1-4, ESRB Rating: E, Price: 1,000 Wii Points)

Virtual Console

• Space Harrier™: (Original platform: Virtual Console Arcade, Publisher: SEGA, Players: 1, ESRB Rating: E, Price: 800 Wii Points)

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Sorry about the late update today. Usually, Nintendo sends out a press release so I can write this up before the update actually goes live. DSiWare gets a nice treat today. Mario vs. Donkey Kong: Minis March Again!, which was announced just days ago at E3. It’s basically a smaller version of Mario vs. Donkey Kong 2: March of the Minis with added functionality: a level creator and level sharing, for unlimited mini marching fun.

Meanwhile, Swords & Soldiers hacks-and-slashes-and-also-strategizes-a-bit on the Wii alongside… a fishing game. Oh, and there’s Ghengis Khan II: Clan of the Gray Wolf on the Virtual Console just in case you like your strategy games a bit more dated.

DSiWare

• Mario vs Donkey Kong: Minis March Again! (Nintendo, 1 player, 800 DSi Points)

WiiWare

• Swords & Soldiers (Ronimo Games, 1 – 2 players, 1,000 Wii Points)
• Fish ‘Em All (Abylight, 1 – 2 players, 800 Wii Points)

Virtual Console

• Ghengis Khan II: Clan of the Gray Wolf (SNES, 1 – 2 players, 800 Wii Points)

It’s time for the Nintendo Press Conference at E3 2009 to start at the Nokia Theater! Pete’s going to handle the live blog (below) and Twitter. Check out the news as it happens!

Update, here’s a summary of the conference:

• New Super Mario Bros. Wii – Holiday 2009
• Wii Fit Plus – Fall 2009
• Wii Sports Resort – June 26
• Tiger Woods’ PGA Tour 10, EA Sports Grand Slam Tennis, Sega’s Virtua Tennis 2009, Red Steel 2 with Wii MotionPlus support
• Final Fantasy Crystal Chronicles: The Crystal Bearers and Kingdom Hearts 358/2 Days trailers shown
• Mario & Luigi: Bowser’s Inside Story and Golden Sun DS coming for DS
• James Patterson’s Womens Murder Club: Games of Passion, C.O.P.: Underground Recruit, Style Savvy shown for DS
• DSi will be able to upload photos directly to Facebook
• Wii Vitality Sensor peripheral sneak peak.
• Super Mario Galaxy 2 coming to Wii
• The Conduit, Resident Evil: The Darkside Chronicles, and Dead Space Extraction coming to Wii
• Metroid: Other M for Wii developed by Team Ninja and Nintendo – third person

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Well, it’s finally here. The first episode of the sequel to Final Fantasy IV. The catch? It’s 800 points. Assuming the pricing is consistent, that means the full set will be 7200, or $72. Ouch. Of course, you could think of each episode as its own separate game, but it still kind of leaves you feeling like a battered spouse. There’s also the possibility that only the first episode costs 800 points and the rest will be cheaper. Maybe if enough people decide to buy Texas Hold’Em Tournament, today’s other WiiWare offering, and pass on The After Years, Square Enix will catch on and adjust the pricing of the other episodes. [UPDATE] The instructions say that the first and last chapters will be 800 points each while the other 7 will be 300.

DSiWare gets its own hotly anticipated game today with Mighty Flip Champs. A full game for 800 points. That’s how it’s done.

DSiWare

• Mighty Flip Champs!™ (800 Points, WayForward Technologies, rated E, 1 player)

WiiWare

• FINAL FANTASY® IV: THE AFTER YEARS™ (800 Points, Square Enix, rated E, 1 player)
• Texas Hold’em Tournament (500 Points, Digital Leisure Inc., rated T, 6 players)

Virtual Console

• Boulder Dash® (500 points, Commodore Gaming, rated E, 1-2 players, Commodore 64)

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It’s a relatively quiet download weekend in the PAL regions, you’d think this was the calm before a storm or something. Among the titles, though, is the classic arcade version of Space Harrier, and the equivalent of Art Style: SOMNIUM. Not bad for a three game offering!

DSiWare

• Art Style: NEMREM (Nintendo, 500 Points)

WiiWare

• Fish’em All! (Abylight, 800 Points)

Virtual Console Arcade

• Space Harrier (SEGA, 800 Points)

GoNintendo

It’s a great week for WiiWare, with not just one, but two updates for classic NES games. Both Bubble Bobble Plus and Adventure Island: The Beginning are finally available in North America today. The Virtual Console gets the Genesis version of Clay Fighter, a fighting game more famous for the novelty of playing as clay models than any particular gameplay innovations.

Over on the DSi is American Popstar: Road to Celebrity. Just watching the trailer has the power to emasculate. You can see where it borrows from various music games to play cover versions of licensed songs. There are also some dating sim elements involved. DSiWare also gets another clock app, which I’m sure is what everyone was waiting for. This one puts your own photos in the background, so you can take a 0.3 megapixel picture of your crotch and put a clock face on it. Think of the possibilities!

DSiWare

• American Popstar: Road to Celebrity (Gameloft, 1-4 players, Rated E for Everyone – Comic Mischief, 800 Nintendo DSi Points™)
• Photo Clock (Nintendo, 1 player, 200 Nintendo DSi Points)

WiiWare

• BUBBLE BOBBLE Plus! (TAITO, 1-4 players, Rated E for Everyone – Comic Mischief, 600 Wii Points™)
• ADVENTURE ISLAND® The Beginning (Hudson Entertainment, 1-2 players, Rated E for Everyone – Cartoon Violence and Comic Mischief, 800 Wii Points)

Virtual Console

• Clay Fighter™ (Sega Genesis, 1-2 players, Rated T for Teen – Comic Mischief and Mild Cartoon Violence, 800 Wii Points)

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Well, as we all kind of assumed, The Legend of Zelda: Majora’s Mask is today’s Virtual Console release at number 300. As you can probably tell by looking at it, Majora’s Mask has a much darker theme than most Zelda games, which makes it a fan favourite. There’s really not much to say that hasn’t already been said. Just buy it.

The rest of the updates are nothing to sneeze at, either. DSiWare gets a new Art Style game with Art Style PiCTOBiTS, a falling block style puzzle game featuring classic Nintendo characters as stage backgrounds. WiiWare gets the second episode of Crystal Defenders and a chess game. There’s something for everyone today.

DSiWare

• Art Style™: PiCTOBiTS™ (Nintendo, 1 player, Rated E for Everyone, 500 Nintendo DSi Points™)

WiiWare

• CRYSTAL DEFENDERS R2 (SQUARE ENIX, 1 player, Rated E for Everyone – Mild Fantasy Violence, 800 Wii Points)
• Silver Star Chess (Agetec, Inc., 1-2 players, Rated E for Everyone – Mild Suggestive Themes, 500 Wii Points)

Virtual Console

• The Legend of Zelda: Majora’s Mask (Nintendo 64, 1 player, Rated E for Everyone – Cartoon Violence, 1,000 Wii Points™)

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The shop updates are sparse across the board this week with only one game each for DSiWare, WiiWare, and the Virtual Console. DSiWare does get an actual full game this week, though, with Real Soccer 2009. Real Soccer 2009 is a port of an iPhone game that controls with the touch screen. Interestingly, you can use your own pictures to customize things like balls and team flags.

On the Wii side of things, WiiWare has Family Pirate Party, another board game style WiiWare game, and the Virtual Console has Galaxy Force II for Sega Genesis. Note that Galaxy Force II is the 299th game released on the Virtual Console. Will the 300th game be a big one? North America still doesn’t have Majora’s Mask or Super Smash Bros.. Will it be one of those or something else? Or will it be a big deal at all? Feel free to speculate in the comments.

DSiWare

• Real Soccer 2009 (Gameloft, 1-4 players, Rated E for Everyone, 800 Nintendo DSi Points™)

WiiWare

• Family Pirate Party (Aksys Games, 1-4 players, Rated E 10+ for Everyone 10 and Older – Mild Cartoon Violence and Suggestive Themes, 500 Wii Points™)

Virtual Console

• Galaxy Force II (Sega Genesis, 1 player, Rated E for Everyone – Fantasy Violence, 800 Wii Points)

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